They were still in the Flame Lizard’s lair, yet the air felt off, thin as ice on a spring puddle.

Sarayka glanced at her cards and smiled, a crescent moon cutting through cloud.

After seven straight losses, her excitement shone naked, her cheeks red as a lantern, as she pulled out a staff bright as a sunbeam.

“I’m betting this staff!”

She still didn’t get the soul of Golden Flower—the soul was the bluff—so the moment she drew a good hand, she burned to show it, like fire licking dry grass.

By sense, Ouyang shouldn’t have followed; his hand was a 3, 5, 6, trash as cold ash.

But Ouyang didn’t even blink; he slid in a purple crystal, smooth as a pebble dropped in a clear stream.

Seeing no fear, Sarayka wouldn’t flinch either; pride rose in her chest like a dragon shadow under the waves.

Ouyang’s cards were garbage, yet his aura had spooked her before; today she braced herself, stubborn as a mountain pine in wind.

“My, you’re loaded for a shorty, huh? That won’t scare me. My hand beats yours, for sure!”

“Tch, where’s that confidence coming from, kid?” His voice was dry as flint.

In the end, Sarayka couldn’t hold it; she flipped, lightning before thunder.

“Hahaha… stunned yet, shorty? You’re done!” She fanned her cards, and the crowd understood her springtime swagger.

Ouyang had explained the rules earlier, so the onlookers had the gist, like fishermen reading clouds before rain.

They saw Sarayka holding A, A, K; they also saw Ouyang’s back, and thus his 3, 5, 6, plain as footprints in snow.

A 3–5–6 against A–A–K? Her hand was the mountain; his was dust, unless his 3–5–6 turned into a straight like 3–4–5 or 4–5–6.

Ouyang only curled his lip; his paw drifted over the cards like a cat over a bowl of cream.

“Kid, back in the Starry Citadel they called me the Little Saint of Gambling, unbeaten across the tables like a hawk riding wind.” His paw lifted; his 3, 5, 6 blossomed into A, A, A.

“See that? Pure power crushing down, like a boulder on a reed.”

Sarayka’s face fell, a paper kite cut from its string.

The adventurers stared, speechless; the cheating blazed like noon sun, yet that cute-dumb lord-tier beast didn’t see it.

By the black cat’s own rules, each rank had only four cards, like four seasons in a year.

Yet on the table, Sarayka held A, A, K, and Ouyang now held A, A, A—five Aces blooming like five moons in one sky.

Such a gaping hole, and the lord-tier beast didn’t notice; the silence was a frozen pond.

Under everyone’s wide eyes, Sarayka drooped and passed her treasure to Ouyang, admitting loss as if bowing to winter.

He cheated so loud it rattled rocks, and she still didn’t see it.

They forgot her terror from moments ago; in their eyes she wasn’t a fearsome lord-tier beast anymore—no, she’d reached fourth-tier since she could take human form—but the label didn’t matter.

Right now she was just a child being bullied by a black cat, a pitiful kid with smarts like a leaky bucket.

They watched her drip treasures away, one by one, a blood-and-tears chronicle you couldn’t bear to look at, like petals falling in a hard rain.

Sarayka never sensed the wrong note; Ouyang’s cheating got louder and wilder, like drums rolling before a storm.

“Haha, I’ve got this one, right?” Her eyes shone like wet jade.

She’d seen Ouyang’s J, Q, K, while she held Q, K, A; more, hers were all clubs and in a straight, green leaves in a neat line.

Victory, surely victory; her heart leapt like a trout.

The black cat stayed calm; he plucked one of her cards and raised it to the light, lazy as a cat in sun.

“Victory? Girl, your eyes are playing tricks,” Ouyang said, and dropped the card like a leaf.

A black spade 3 flashed where her Ace had been, cold as ink; her hand became spade 3, club Q, club K.

“But… I remember it was Q–K–A…” Her fingers touched her temple, doubt rippling like wind over wheat.

“No, little imp, you’re seeing things,” he purred, voice smooth as satin. “You’ve been losing so much you’re desperate, so you hallucinated a win.”

The adventurers traded looks, fish under ice; hallucinations, all of them?

They’d watched the Ace in her hand; the cat had lifted it, stared a few breaths, and set down a 3, clean as a cut.

Cheating this blatant, this brazen, rang like a bell in a temple.

Worse, Sarayka—our Sarayka—nodded with puzzled honesty, admitting she’d imagined it, like a child swallowing snow.

They clutched their stomachs, laughter clawing up like spring thunder, but they didn’t dare let it break.

Whenever a chuckle swelled, the black cat would look over, eyes like knives behind silk, and they went still, leaves pressed flat by wind.

They saw it clear now: the Flame Lizard girl was adorable and slow, sugar-dumb to the core, while the harmless-looking cat was black-bellied as night.

With cheating this wild, the end needed no divination sticks.

In the end, Sarayka lost everything; they watched her pass away treasure after treasure, like a river giving up its fish.

“So, nothing valuable left?” Ouyang tilted his head, moonlight on dark fur. “Then I’m off. When you’ve got new treasure, come find me for a ‘duel.’”

He had piled the loot into a wide sun hat, jaunty as a sail.

That hat was Youwen, his personal weapon, reshaped; it blocked wind and rain, kept heat and cool, and hid space inside, like a gourd with a sky.

So many tricks it was laughable, like a street magician with a thousand scarves.

Ouyang set the hat on his head, a cocky little cloud.

Saya, seeing no more “duel,” scooped him up and rubbed his cheeks, hands warm as bread.

“Mm, Saya, stop—don’t treat me like a kitten…” he protested, a low growl under velvet, and she relented, smile soft as dusk.

They turned to leave the cave, steps echoing like drops in a well.

Behind them, a tiny loli wilted where she stood; she had gambled away her hoard and her light.

She shifted back to lizard and lay there, heart sore as a bruise; she wouldn’t go back on her word, not with Flame Dragon blood in her bones.

Her pride wouldn’t let her snatch back the treasure after losing, the way a hawk won’t peck carrion.

“Kid, want to go with—uh—this king and see the human kingdoms, all their bright lights?” The black cat lounged on Saya’s shoulder, legs swinging like bells on a breeze.

He asked because her simplicity amused him, a moth dancing to a candle; a mount that easy to fool sounded fun.

Sarayka opened those lizard eyes, pupils thin as knife-edges.

“The human kingdoms? Are they fun?” Her voice was a small flame.

“Fun! Absolutely fun!” His promise cracked like firewood.

“But Mother said humans are sly as foxes. Don’t trust them, and don’t wander their lands…” Her obedience sat neat as folded robes.

The adventurers prayed in their chests, palms cold as stone: please don’t agree.

A lord-tier beast in human lands was a walking war drum, a man-shaped bomb.

Wait—something was off. The cat wasn’t simple either; either way, he’d go to human lands, tethered to Saya like a shadow to a lantern.

Saya looked human—so they thought—and humans lived where city lights glowed; where she went, the demon-cat would pad along.

That was the better case; the worst was the cat sweet-talking the lizard, and both monsters roaming city streets like storm gods.

At that thought, their hearts tightened like knots in rope.

If those two wandered the human world and some blind fool offended them, a single spark could level a city to ash.

Riji bit his tongue; he wanted to speak and scatter the thought like chaff, even to sway the cat.

Why leave your lair, you who could be a little emperor of earth and fire, to stroll human roads?

But it was only a thought; he’d seen the cat play the lizard like a flute, and knew the feline had already grown a spirit.

He didn’t dare wade in and churn that water; who knew how he’d die if he did?

He could only pray, like incense smoke twisting upward, that they wouldn’t stir up storms among men.

“Kid, with me covering you, no human trash will touch a scale,” Ouyang said, voice lazy and lethal, a tiger under a silk screen.

“Stick with me and you’ll eat rich and drink sweet. I’ll take you to the royal treasury to pick things—anything you like, you take.”

“Once you’re done, we walk away without so much as a cloud’s shadow left behind.”

The crowd felt the words slide wrong, like grit between teeth.

That was the royal treasury, not your backyard; you don’t stroll in and stroll out, no ripples, as if court mages were potted plants.